But if i start thinking about it more and more and "analyzing" whether i should buy something -- the "analysis" eventually turns into my brain coming up with some poorly rationalized justification of why i should buy it and why it's really not such a large amount of money to spend. Sooner or later it's almost as if i have to buy it just to stop thinking about it!

Yeah, I think I'm doing the same sort of justification, mouser. The PC I've got is functioning just fine, and more than ample for my needs. But, I make a few hundred extra bucks a month proofreading, and I think to myself, "Go ahead. Treat yourself. You deserve it..."

I struggle with this also. The way I handle it is by researching obsessively the equipment I'm eyeing, and if i can put together an actual project that I will do something with, then I start buying the stuff. It took me 3 years before i started my server project.

if i start thinking about it more and more and "analyzing" whether i should buy something -- the "analysis" eventually turns into my brain coming up with some poorly rationalized justification of why i should buy it and why it's really not such a large amount of money to spend. Sooner or later it's almost as if i have to buy it just to stop thinking about it!

a friend of mine says:- if you want something long enough, then you *need* it...

I was looking at laptops lately and was sorely tempted by a beautiful little Dell (XPS13) - the fact I couldnt really afford it helped; also the fact you can get it a few hundred dollars cheaper in the States helped turn me against the idea.

I get this problem more with cameras. What always helps there, is reading the serious in-depth reviews: there's always a list of cons that makes it easy to think - no, I dont need this until it's better. (I'm holding out until there's a large sensor compact with at least 10x zoom - which looks like it'll take another few years.)

With laptops or desktops, I'd love silence but beyond that I dont really care what's under the hood so long as it does what I need without struggling.

I avoid to buy a faster PC since I realized that many slownesses are not due to the PC itself. It's useless buying a faster PC when certain slownesses depends on slow Internet servers, slow software, antivirus bugs and activity, and so on.

I generally don't get a temptation to buy more powerful stuff unless there's some aspect of my current gear that I'm very unhappy with. Would I like a faster CPU or more RAM or larger storage? Sure! But what I have is doing me just fine for now. But sometimes I run into issues with things that aren't working to my satisfaction.

For example, for the past couple of years, my GPU has been causing me grief. The GPU itself is pretty good and can handle just about every game I've tried on it at 1080p with the highest settings without issue. And it can almost do the same at 2K (2560x1440). But it has only a single fan, which is of poor quality. It already failed once and got replaced, and the replacement started to show similar signs of failure/wearing out after only a few months.

So every once in a while I wonder if I should buy another GPU. But for the most part, I'm still satisfied with what I have.

Even when I am actively wanting/hoping to upgrade to something more powerful, I don't buy it until I can afford it. My definition of being able to afford something is having the money budgeted and set aside specifically for that thing. It's not whether I can afford payments buying it on credit. It's not whether I have enough money in the bank (and potentially forgetting about big payment X coming up next month the money was supposed to be used on).

So for me, it comes down to having a need/use for it, then saving up the money for it. And once I'm at that point, I don't have any reservations about buying it.

Buying something you can't afford is a big no-no. Buying something you can afford but don't need (or have a use for) can be an issue, depending on the circumstances. But IMO, if you need or have a use for something, and you can afford it, go for it!

Speaking of SSD I am waiting for the promised "price plummet" with the 3D stacked memory technology or whatever they call it. Give me 1 TB for $50 or give me a 500GB USB 3 stick for $25. I am tapping my foot until they deliver.

I have been hesitating for a very long time, not knowing what I needed the most, a new smart phone, a new television, or a new PC - the money merely is to just one item. You just made me make up my mind!

I have been hesitating for a very long time, not knowing what I needed the most, a new smart phone, a new television, or a new PC - the money merely is to just one item. You just made me make up my mind!

I think what I would like to get is an 8 core BluRay reader/wrtier machine with 64 GB ram and a bunch of SSDs. Windows 7 x64 SP1 preloaded, but custom. No bloat/trial/crap ware or AVs installed. 4kHD with super high performance GPU and monitors. Then I would hook it up to a gigabit internet and figure out what to do with it later.

mad money: (noun) Money saved by a woman against the time when she wants to make an impulsive or therapeutic purchase.

It is not your nest egg, float (reserve cash required to keep you from sinking), or cushion (aka safety net or rainy day fund)

After paying all your obligated expenses, and whatever you need to towards your nest egg and/or cushion, and factoring in your normal required amount of pocket cash, you deposit a small amount of whatever is leftover into this mad money fund each week or month, for use when you want to buy that stuff you have been resisting, for when you can resist no more, or when you have an absolute emotional need to buy something for yourself to maintain your sanity.

If and when you purchase anything with this money, you do it for the sake of your own emotional and/or psychological well being, without any shame, guilt, or regret involved. It's ok to spend it frivolously. This money is usually never used to pay normal bills.

Traditionally, this is the cash your mom and/or grandmother probably kept hidden in a coffee can, that your dad and/or grandfather never knew about, made up from the cash leftover after doing the weekly grocery shopping (which is why they were fanatics about coupons), that she would occasionally use to buy herself nice things (new shoes, pretty dress, trip to a salon to have her hair done, etc.), anything she knew your dad/grandfather would say no to, but felt she needed for the sake of her own happiness.

If there was nothing in the coffee can, she knew she would have to wait till there was, before she could splurge on herself, again.

Currently, whatever I have in the way of donation credits is my mad money fund. Since it does take a little while to cash them out and make them available to spend on whatever, this in itself is kind of a deterrent not to spend them unless I really have to, to preserve my sanity. Since I don't currently have enough credits to spend on a shiny new more powerful pc, it makes frivolously buying one, very easy to resist.

I don't do any high-end video-gaming, so I really don't need a potent graphics card or fastest CPU available. However, I do notice that the 3.0 GHz i5 computer I use at work loads my portable apps launcher noticeably quicker than the 2.41 GHz J2900 chip and 8 Gb of Ram on my home machine. Right now, I've got two systems linked on a home network -- a 2.41 GHz machine on 8Gb Ram, and a 2.8 GHz machine on 6Gb Ram, both running Windows 10. No need to change, based upon my needs.

^ demanding "friends" made me make a middle of the road choice and buy a new cell phone, not "smart", but talk & sms only! I was hoping this would make me able to have a new television before the world cup in team handball begins in December.

I am fortunate enough to have a "coupon" for a new computer for my recent Birthday! (Wheezing "I'm an ooold birdy. I had Denver the last Dinosaur's Father for a pet!")

But based on some of you gang's comments, I first said, "well, so I lost my D Drive, but before we go all gung ho, I'd first like to take it to a good comp guy (better than Staples or Best Buy) to see if it's just a loose cable, and then next, just do some hardware tests, because if the main line motherboards and stuff are fine, I'm dying to try out dual booting into Win 10 which is what I designed this machine for - the future. And then even if not, salvage the existing C drive and make it the new backup data drive to save work cross copying everything everywhere on a new machine.)

(And it makes me want THREE HD's in a new system if possible / sensible, with some kind of better mirror system going! The system I had *almost worked* except I got sloppy!)

I also remarked that in my long term plan designed a decade ago, it is now known as Win 10, and we're just too new on the cusp to know where any of it shakes out, and if there's any gremlins lurking that will show up quasi soon that are game changers.

The only performance problems I have tend to be browsers getting sloppy and chewing up cpu and/or memory, and some HD type failures and struggles that I just want a competent check-out on. (Well, a slowly creaking OS, I guess.) But User side, I mean, it's not like the old days you just wailed at the aging state of the tech at the time - I still essentially have nearly all I need on this system I built with a buddy a decade ago.